Next to Me
by whispered touches
Summary: They're two brothers sitting in their pajamas at almost five in the morning and Mako is ready to have a panic attack because he thinks he doesn't know how to be a father, which is about the most ridiculous thing Bolin's ever heard. Mako and Bolin have a little chat. One-shot.


**notes:** fair warning, the alternate title is "WOOPS i gave myself feels," so beware, i guess. i finished this at 6 in the morning after writing for 4 hours so if there's weird stuff that doesn't make sense then there's my excuse.

**more notes: **i hope this doesn't come off as too dramatic or fluffy or cheesy so that it's unbelievable, but i mean, i dunno, i like writing long emotional outbursts and i feel like Mako would be really good at those, especially with this and with Bolin so i guess you'll be the judge. by the way, i love concrit. i've never written the brothers like this before so that'd be really appreciated if i screwed something up.

**even more notes: **real title is a song by Civil Twilight that is now my Fresh and Juicy theme song - _"you are my only embrace, you are the light that lights my face." _now without further ado...

* * *

"Whutimizzit?"

Bolin's muttering nonsense, rolling out of bed, looking at the clock before he's even really awake. Answering his own question – _too early for this_ (whatever _this_ turns out to be) – he takes a moment to let his head stop spinning, then stumbles through his apartment in the dark to the front door, where someone is pounding so loudly and obnoxiously they may as well be hammering on the inside of his skull. On the way there he scuffs his foot, trips, and catches himself on the doorknob, using it to pull himself up and then twisting it, opening the door.

"Mako?" he mumbles in a rough voice as he rubs his eye. "What're you doin' here?"

His older brother is pale and nervous-looking, jacket unfastened, fidgeting with the scarf dangling haphazardly from his neck. "Morning, bro," he says. He offers Bolin this weird, strained sort of smile. "I, uh, couldn't sleep."

Bolin leans against the door, shakes his head, still processing. "'S… 's four in the mornin'."

Mako winces, apologetic. "I know."

Bo's eyebrows are pulled so close together and so low he can actually see them. After a few seconds, he blinks once, hard, opens his eyes wide, turns and walks back inside, leaving the door open as a wordless invitation. Behind him, he dimly hears Mako accept, closing it.

While he flicks on some lights, Mako sits down on the edge of the couch, rubbing his hands on his knees. Bolin grabs half-blindly for a chair from the kitchenette and drags it across the room, plopping down on it as soon as he gets the chance.

"All right, what's the problem?" he says, ruffling the hair on the back of his head. "Is it Korra?"

There's a long moment of silence before Mako speaks, and when he does it's to the floor: "Korra… she, uh… she thinks… Korra might be pregnant."

More silence.

Well, that explains a lot.

Bolin nods slowly. Deciding this is a conversation he doesn't want to have in only his underwear, he gets up and he leaves the room and leaves Mako sitting there with his head bowed and as he pulls on some pants, he wakes up the rest of the way and lets the information settle in his mind, turning it over.

Back in the living room he collapses back into the chair and says, "Okay, okay, say that again for me, just to clarify, I wanna make sure I'm not imagining things."

With a heavy sigh, the same one that used to sound exasperated but now just comes out like he's having trouble breathing, Mako swipes a hand across his face. "Korra thinks she might be pregnant," he repeats.

Bo slumps, sitting back. "Wow."

"Yeah."

Finally then it hits him, for real – Mako and Korra are having a _baby_, a little mini-person, pieces of them put together – Bolin's going to be an _uncle_ – and he feels his own grin split his face. "Wow, that's _fantastic_, Mako!" he says in a near-shout, jumping over to the couch to wrap his arms tight around his brother's shoulders.

Mako looks sideways at him, still pale, still drawn. "You really think so?" he says.

His grip slackens. "Don't you?"

"Of course I do, it's just –" His gaze darts away, head turning to follow, and his sigh is more of an exhale, there's no real vocal part to it. "I don't know."

They're quiet again. Bolin removes his arm so their shoulders and elbows are pressed together. Not so gangly anymore, he thinks, the two of them. No more dirty forearms blackened and battered by the streets, no more elbows rubbed raw by the cold, no more bloody scrapes gone untreated. They've both got muscles spread tight beneath their skin; Mako's thinner, leaner, like he's always been (_nah, Bo, it's okay, you can have it, I'm not hungry anyway; you go ahead and start without me, Bo, I can wait a while; go on, Bo, eat up, that's yours_ – always Bo first, as if he was afraid he'd forget his own name, even as his shirt hung three sizes too big and his stomach snarled like a wild animal), but Mako's stronger than he looks. He and Bolin share the same calluses on their hands, the pads of their fingers, and Mako's got those scars webbing across his palms, exposed to him now because he's not wearing his gloves. _Keep it hidden,_ he said, _keep hidden._

Mako's stronger than he looks. That's an advantage, but also a front, and Bolin forgets sometimes that even if his big brother doesn't look as strong as he is, he's also weaker than he seems, and it's times like this that remind him.

So he waits. He's patient. He'll sit here all day if he has to.

But he doesn't.

"I mean, it's something we've talked about," Mako says at length, "and it's something we both want –"

"Kids, you mean."

He closes his eyes, nodding, hesitates before he continues. "But we're not, we weren't, we haven't been – trying," he says, not giving Bolin the chance to finish his sentence. "We don't really know if now's the right time or if we're ready and…" Another deep breath. "I'm not sure how to feel about it."

The last time Mako looked like this – Bo can barely even remember, it must've been _years_ ago, years and years, _before_ – he's not sure what the results are, but he's sure they're not good. Either way, he knows he's got to step up, be the big brother for once, be the Mako.

Problem is, he kind of sucks at being Mako, which is why he likes to be Bolin instead (that was a lesson that took him way too long to learn). It comes easier to him, and honestly, it's a lot more fun. But Mako needs him, and there are no excuses. They're brothers, after all.

"Well…" He casts around for the right thing to say, latches onto it once he finds it, drifting off near the ring on Mako's finger. "How does Korra feel about it?"

"She's…" Mako rubs his hands together, weaves his fingers. "Surprised, I guess – we both are. Obviously. I'm here, aren't I? But I think she's… holding off on deciding what to think until we know for sure. Nothing's solid, yet, it's just suspicion at this point."

"Right."

"But if she is pregnant, I think she'll be… she'll be happy about it. She wants kids. I know she does. And I know she'll be a great mother."

"Yeah."

He falls back into silence then and Bolin's patient but patience isn't what Mako needs right now.

"Come on, bro, out with it," he says, and in contrast to the words his tone's soft.

Mako leans forward ducks his head, locking his laced fingers on the back of his neck, arms hanging down, and there's something in the tense line in his shoulders and spine, the one of pride and dignity they managed to pick up from the corners of alleys, that tells Bolin there's going to be an explosion before there is one. (Later, when he's a bit more coherent, he'll wonder if "bro" was the trigger, and he won't really want to know the answer.)

"How the hell am I supposed to be a father?" he says, snapping back up. "How am I supposed to father someone – a person, a baby, _my_ baby, my kid, my responsibility – when I've never even really had one? You know," – the way Mako's eyebrows slant and his eyes crinkle up and his mouth shakes and he just looks broken for a second, it twists Bo's heart – "I barely even remember Mom and Dad anymore. Their faces. I haven't been able to remember their voices since I was thirteen. I don't think it's possible, but they – it's like they just keep slipping further and further away and there's nothing I can do to stop it."

What, then, Bolin wonders, were all those memories Mako once told him about, makeshift bedtime stories, when they used hunger for pillows and shadows for blankets? _No_, he tells himself, next, _that was before_.

"When you have a kid, you're supposed to have somebody to turn to," says Mako. "Somebody who you can tell, 'hey, you're going to be a grandfather!' Somebody to ask for advice – somebody to ask for _help_." His voice cracks, just slightly, and Bo can hardly stand to meet his eyes (_help, somebody, someone, please help, help him, he's my brother–_). "I don't have that, I can't – it's not like I can go to Tonraq, he hates me," (that's a lie) "he'll think I'm pathetic if I can't even take care of my own kid" (that's not) "and Tenzin's been great to us, he really has, but he's not – he's not our dad."

That's not a lie, either. It takes Bolin a moment to regain his voice. "I know." He realizes he's clenching his jaw, does nothing to change it.

Mako tugs at his hair. "I can't be a dad, Bolin, I'm not ready, I don't know how," he says.

They stare at each other in the dim light; out the window, far in the distance, the horizon is beginning to lighten, and they're two brothers sitting in their pajamas in an apartment at (a glance to the clock) almost five in the morning, and Mako – level-headed, clear-sighted, _cool under fire_ Mako – is ready to have a panic attack because Korra _might_ be pregnant and he thinks he doesn't know how to be a father.

Bolin does the only thing that makes sense: He laughs.

He laughs so hard and so loud he's a little worried the neighbors are going to complain. The look on Mako's face isn't helping, a mix of frustrated and confused and offended and indignant, and every time he catches sight of it, when he's on the brink of stopping, he starts up again. He laughs because it's funny and stupid. He laughs because he's Bolin and that's what Bolins do, they laugh at funny and stupid things, and maybe he laughs because he's an adult and he's not completely blind, never really was, to how wrong it was, still is (he remembers trying to hate firebenders and then realizing properly that Mako's a firebender and – _oh, well, nevermind, you're not one of the bad guys_), and he just needs an excuse to wipe some tears from his eyes.

"Mako… oh, man." Bo looks at him, grinning. "You're really serious, aren't you?"

Mako's frown is quickly evolving into a scowl. "Yes, I'm serious, Bolin. What the hell is so funny?"

Bolin grips his shoulder. His hands are bigger than Mako's, he thinks, or maybe they're the same size. Smiling now, the toothiness gone from it, he pulls Mako into a rough, tight hug.

"Bo, what –" he says, disarmed, but his arms go around him by instinct.

Mouth buried in his brother's shoulder, it's muffled, but close enough to his ear for him to hear: "You're going to do just fine, bro."

"Yeah?" Breathy and gruff. "What makes you say that?"

He pulls back, keeps his hands on his biceps, near the elbows.

"Mako," – and he hasn't been for many years but that doesn't mean it's not true, doesn't mean it's not a fact – "you're the best father I've ever had."

For a couple seconds, Mako just blinks at him. Then the blinks start to come faster and he hugs him again, tighter, if that's possible, almost painfully, so that it's hard to breathe – but it's the good kind of hurt, the good kind of not being able to breathe, the best kind, especially when he leans back, grabs Bolin's head (heels of his hands on the sides of his cheekbones, palms cupping his ears, fingers reaching around to the back), tilts it down and kisses the top of it before setting his chin on Bo's shoulder, a hand at the nape of his neck. He has a brief moment of _when was the last time_ that he gives up on quickly – before, he's sure, but that's the past – it doesn't matter, he's doing it now, that's the important part, the new memories are what matter – the new memories they're going to have with Mako and Korra's kid – _Mako's_ kid, Mako's going to be a _dad_, that's so weird to think of, or it should be, except it's not, not really. Not to Bolin. _Mako's going to be a dad._ No, that seems _right_.

One final squeeze and they break apart with a lot of manly back-slapping and throat-clearing and nose-rubbing and eye-wiping.

"Thanks, bro," Mako says, and neither of them will look at the other but he knows the words are sincere.

"Don't mention it," Bolin mutters, even though it goes unspoken that there are some things that need to stay between brothers.

They glance at each other and away, laughing.

He stands. So does Mako.

Bolin says, "Do you, uh, do you want me to make some breakfast?"

"Uh, no, I should probably –" Mako jerks his thumb toward the door.

"Yeah, go home."

Bo walks him out. They linger in the hall.

"So keep me posted, all right?" he says.

"You bet," Mako says, and why can't either of them stop _smiling?_ "Nothing's definite yet, but you'll be the first to know. If not now, then…"

He lets it trail off unfinished; again, it goes without saying.

"Good."

Another pause.

"You know, Bo, I don't know if it matters," says Mako, "but I think you're going to make a great uncle."

His throat closes up, but Bolin keeps grinning. "Great enough to name the baby after me?"

Mako chuckles, rolling his eyes. "I'll mention it to Korra. Put in a good word for you."

"Thanks."

His face softens. "You, too." He ruffles Bolin's hair just because he can _(you're really tall, will I ever be as tall as you?)_, and Bolin ducks away. "Love you, little bro."

Fixing his hair, still with a smile. "Love you back, big bro."

Mako smacks his arm. "See you soon."

"Yeah." And once Mako's turned the corner and Bolin's closed the door: "See you soon."


End file.
